BLOG

Welcome to the London Society - the forum for debate for London's built environment.
To find out about JOINING the Society CLICK HERE
Below you'll find our latest blog posts - use the menu above to find out details of our forthcoming events, more about the history of the Society, as well as our aims and our membership.

Currently showing blog posts for: April 2018 - . Go BACK to view all posts.

There are some architects whose reputation proceeds them. And then there is Richard Rogers, the original starchitect.

From the first moment of this excellent co-authored autobiography the reader is plunged into Rogers’ technicolour world of optimistic, egalitarian, wildly experimental and unapologetically modern architecture. It is impossible not to emerge starry-eyed and breathless.

He and Richard Brown tell the Rogers’ story in a fun, accessible style that mixes personal anecdote, potted history of 20th Century architecture, highlights from his career and political commentary. It is readable and enjoyable even for those who aren’t normally interested in architecture.

Read More…

Given the ‘high-tech’ nature of his work one can be forgiven for forgetting that Richard Rogers, now in his 80s, is roughly the same generation as the Queen (who has just turned 92). That means, when it comes to the history of modern architecture, he has personally been around for a lot of it. For millennials it’s like the memoir you wish your grandparents could have written, giving a fascinating personal insight into the story of post-war re-development and the cycles of decline and regeneration, boom and bust, Tory vs Labour, that have characterised Britain since the 1950s.

All this is seen via the evolution of his own practice, highlights of which are among the most intriguing chapters in the book. It all starts with 22 Parkside, the Wimbledon home that he and his first partners built for his parents. The house, recently renovated and bequeathed to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, is actually two buildings; single-storey boxes separated by a courtyard and set back from the road in the middle of ultra conservative Wimbledon village. Now Grade II listed the buildings are comprised of yellow painted steel beams, aluminium tube walls dotted with portholes, bookended with glass and held together with neoprene.

The story of its conception introduces the reader to the genesis of what becomes his calling card: flexible, sustainable buildings typified by wide open spaces and filled with light. They draw on innovations inspired by industrial buildings to fulfil their function with an aesthetic that boldly articulates this engineering. The trajectory of how he reaches this is told via a series of case studies and influences that ultimately culminate in the rollercoaster story of equal parts success and controversy that is the Pompidou Centre.

Rogers is at pains to impress upon the reader that architecture is a team sport. Throughout the book he credits his partners from Renzo Piano to Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. This is a commendable attempt at myth busting his own legend but comes off as a little disingenuous. Rogers’ practice is all about his personal brand, he might not always be the only brains or, as he freely admits, the best draughtsman behind his now global operation but he is the figurehead; the success of his business depends on this just as much as on portholes, cantilevers and primary colours.

Lord Rogers of Riverside is an awkward title for such a forthright socialist to possess and it shows. As the book moves onto the story of his years of political influence in the Blair government the writing becomes extremely anxious to show Rogers in the best possible light. The anecdotes of his skirmishes with Prince Charles, his agonising over whether to accept his place in the House of Lords and his opposition to the war in Iraq seem carefully chosen to justify himself in the eyes of those who have previously put the word ‘champagne’ next to his political credentials. The long list of elite corporate clients in the RSH+P portfolio jars with his calls for a more equal society.

The book rightly celebrates his huge influence over the development of modern architectural language and planning policy. His egalitarian ideals might have often been stretched to their breaking point but miraculously they still prevail. There are parts of this book repeated almost word for word from his 1995 Reith Lectures and 1990 Desert Island Discs. Both recordings and book are filled with an incredible array of ideas for the future but he does occasionally let his political opinions get the better of him, particularly in the last chapter where the tone becomes irritatingly preaching.

His most interesting observations are on the role of good architecture as a civilising influence on society. It is his consistent belief in the possibilities of sustainable design, his drive for innovation and his advocacy for public space that redeem his more verbose political statements. He comes across best as a knowledgeable, articulate and passionate architect with a vast amount of experience and insight into how we can shape our built environment for the benefit of all people.

This isn’t quite the manifesto for ‘our human future’ that a quote on the back cover claims but it is still an inspiring read, reminding us of the power of a Rogers-like optimism in the face of seemingly insurmountable urban challenges.

Almacantar is a property investment and development company, specialising in large-scale, complex investments in Central London with the potential to create long-term value through development, repositioning or active asset management.

Since its launch in 2010, Almacantar have acquired over 1.5 million sq. ft. of prime assets in the heart of London including:

Centre Point: the tallest luxury residential building in the West End and boasts panoramic uninterrupted views of London

Marble Arch Place will set a new standard for luxury living, overlooking Hyde Park with high quality office and retail space

One and Two Southbank Place: the only high-quality office space to be built in Waterloo since the 1980s

Collectively the Almacantar team has vast industry experience and expertise in the property industry which enables us to confidently embrace the challenge of redeveloping complex buildings.

Before founding Almacantar, CEO Mike Hussey spent seven years at Land Securities plc, the largest property company in the UK, where he was an Executive Board Director with responsibility for the London portfolio and Strategic Land portfolio. He is well regarded in the public capital markets and ran a team of over 200 people at Land Securities. Property Director, Kathrin Hersel was Development Director at Land Securities where she worked on a range of transformational developments including One New Change, Wellington House and 20 Fenchurch Street.

London is a world-class city full of history and culture. It instils a strong sense of community – something which the company fosters within all of its properties. London’s position, language, culture, skilled workforce, legal system, quality of life, healthcare and education make it a unique place to live and work. It’s a cosmopolitan city that has everything in one place – financial and insurance services, advisory services, tech and creative industries, government, research centres and top educational institutes are all based here.

On 10 April the Society’s ‘Planning for 10 Million Londoners’ series touched on one of the most constantly controversial issues in London’s planning – the preservation or otherwise of the Green Belt. Colin Wilson of the GLA stuck his head over the parapet; Ben Taylor of Hawkins Brown reports.

Let’s release 3% of the Green Belt. Not the nice parts that people enjoy, just areas already inside the GLA boundary that are unused or cut off by infrastructure and London. Then pockets of virtually abandoned, often contaminated land can be put to better use for housing or industry and London can undo its top button and expand without anyone getting too upset. This is what Colin Wilson argued for in his talk, Rationalising Land Use Allocation in the Green Belt – the latest in the London Society’s Planning for 10 Million series. In a presentation he first gave to the deputy Mayor of London’s office a year ago, Wilson made a pragmatic and insightful case for re-examining parts of the Green Belt that fall short of the green and pleasant land held within the public imagination and which could offer a more beneficial purpose. This was backed up by an account from Ismail Mulla of Enfield Borough Council on how the local authority was preparing for the growing population challenges ahead.

Read More…

The talks were framed around the Upper Lea Valley Opportunity Area, where we were shown a host of run-down areas of outer London that, Wilson argues, could have far greater social value if not constrained by Green Belt legislation. And it’s difficult to disagree. As the population of London creeps towards the 10 million mark, these corners of neither suburb nor countryside are growing increasingly contentious. Moreover, billions are being spent by the public on Crossrail 1 and 2, planned to extend along the Lea Valley deep into the Green Belt. The outcome is set to be that a few areas of scrubland are set to become enviably well-connected. So how, we are asked, can we justify this investment if unused areas along its route are prohibited from being developed?

Wilson’s most pertinent insight, however, was to remind us that the Green Belt should be understood as a mechanism for urban containment, rather than as a landscape in its own right. This certainly resonated with my own reflection on the Green Belt. Readers of the London Society blog will probably be aware that the stated function of the Green Belt is to keep the land within ‘permanently open’. They might be less aware that there is no firm definition for what openness means, or what makes it such an axiomatic good that it should form the basis for urban containment. One would be forgiven for seeing it as a straightforward spatial attribute – after all, who doesn’t want the open countryside to be protected? Though consider, as Wilson encourages us to do, the landscapes that are preserved within the Green Belt by virtue of their ‘openness’. Parks and woodland, yes – but also industrialised agriculture, golf courses, utilities and infrastructure, many of which are significantly environmentally degraded and make little societal contribution. Perhaps this is why the Green Belt has proven such an extraordinarily popular and successful policy (at least within its own terms). If this wide range of environments can be comprehended as a single ‘open’ landscape, it can be conceived of as a single place, the entirety of which will be under threat by any form of development. Through his examples, Wilson convincingly dispels this commonplace misconception: selectively and strategically changing the use of permanently spoiled (albeit ‘open’) areas does not mean the complete erosion of the countryside.

It has been over 50 years since the Green Belt was introduced, Wilson observes – is it still the same place as it was back then? Indeed, were we to introduce the Green Belt today, would we protect the same areas? Presumably not was the clear message of the evening, so what do we do about it? This is where questions remained. Both talks were framed heavily in relation to the new London Plan, but as a chapter of planning policy the Green Belt is enacted by national government, to which virtually no reference was made by either speaker. So for all the persuasive points for making London work for 10 million, how do we find the political drive to enact it? This revealed a more conspicuous absence in the talk – Wilson’s refrain from making a direct stance on what the Green Belt and London’s periphery should be. While at pains to emphasise that only dilapidated parts of the Green Belt need be reallocated to meet London’s growth, this approach overlooks the fact that environmental degradation of London’s edge is often a direct result of Green Belt policy. There are good arguments for maintaining London’s urban containment, as there are for relaxing it. However, the Green Belt and its central tenet of openness is a bizarre and damaging means by which to achieve it. Retreating from this reality limits any plan for outer London to temporary fixes rather than forward-looking strategies.

Though both talks had some arresting details and vital questions, the take from the evening was not unfamiliar: the Green Belt basically works, except for when it doesn’t. Chatting with other attendees over drinks at the end, the parting feeling was something like the deflation of seeing a toy in a shop window you want but can’t have. Hearing his resigned sigh that none of what he presented was being adopted into the new London Plan, you got the feeling Colin Wilson felt the same way.

On 22 March the London Society were fortunate enough to welcome Alan Powers, author of multiple books on modern architecture in Britain, to give us an insight into the developments of architecture in the 1930’s. Finbar Bradley reports.

Alan was eager to point out that with him at the wheel, this journey would not merely be a single path on a chronological venture but would create points which will make people reflect upon their views. He did not disappoint.

Putting the 1930s into context, after the Bank of England abandoned the Gold Standard, the progression toward using materials and goods only of English manufacturer began. There was a mentality that everything was possible and imagery such as William Walcot’s docking zeppelins at the Savoy Hotel in 1950 seemed feasible. Charles Glover’s Kings Cross Airport was another project of idyllic taste, but lacking in the reality of the time.

Read More…

However, the rational architectural context was somewhat different. The Victorian era had covered everything in decoration and the modern movement was in many cases a matter of scraping off the victorian to find the essence of composed simplicity beneath. At this point, it became evident that there were to be two strands of modernism; the international style and a movement which was later referred to as Regionalism.

Alan intended to highlight both sides of the fence, remove the prejudice of the mind and not merely describe architecture of the 1930s but examine how we as individuals position ourselves against it. He pointed out that, in many ways, the Victorian terrace was a modernist typology which sits within the regionalised sector. Anonymous, unauthorised buildings of peaceful proportions were “the spirit that the new movement should possess.” European Architects such as Bruno Taut helped to reintroduce Britain to their love affair with the terrace, with modernists needing not to reinvent but simply to peer beneath.

Buildings of varying aesthetics were proposed as George VI style by Alan; he describes the style as “flat and papery, like a naval officer in a well cut suit.” Examples vary between John Burnet’s British museum, described by Rendel Goodhart as “expertise restored” and Charles Holden’s Arnos Grove Station which formed a town focal point. Its stylistic capabilities do not hold the same rigour as the International Style however its proportions and requirement to embody strong composition give it a character suited to agile implementation.

Toward the end of the decade, where great modernist such as Le Corbusier began to use stone in their work, British Architects moved back to the use of Bricks. 1-3 Willow Way by Ernő Goldfinger illustrating this point perfectly. The exemplar project was EP Wheeler’s former St. Martins college which took to ignoring modernism or as he described it; “ye olde modern style” as this had managed to form a purely stylised aesthetic by attempting to rid it self of just this thing. Therefore by ignoring the MARS group and defining the project by surrounding context, the building takes on a character of the place.

It is clear to see that the period of architecture has had ramifications through to the present day and Alan was quick to point out that the George VI style still holds a strong footing in our contemporary work. The presentation highlighted the clear necessity of context, something which is becoming a further heated discussion everyday but furthermore opened the floor to the concept that few buildings are made of a style but inherit references from the styles surrounding them.

Nicole Badstuber, a doctoral researcher in urban transport governance and policy at UCL and Knowledge Exchange Coordinator at the UCL Transport Institute.

The discussion will be chaired byJonn Elledge of CityMetric. If you want to know how London might evolve in the next three decades, or if you have opinions you’d like to share, come along to what will be a fascinating debate on our possible futures.

The theme for the summer issue of the London Society Journal will be ‘a future informed by the past’,engaging with the ongoing development and evolution of London, but with a respect for its history.

All ideas are welcome on this broad theme. To get you thinking, the sorts of subjects we might include could be (but aren’t limited to):

a building or culture or community that’s key to the identity of a neighbourhood

an area undergoing, or about to undergo, regeneration (how does it respect, or not, existing place and identity)

a proposed new building, or one under construction, that could become a new landmark

an example of placemaking where the past has successfully informed sensitive redevelopment (it could even be something from another city that we could learn from)

icons it’s time to let go of or things London’s lost that we now regret

areas, communities or cultures that have been obliterated, and what we can learn from past mistakes made

using technology to find out about the past and our experience of the city eg the best London apps (the past informed by the future!)

ruins

nostalgia

history and identity

Read More…

Pieces needn’t be very long. They could be:

short provocations and opinion pieces (about 500 words)

interviews

case studies

lists, maps, miniguides, etc

photojournalism, and other visual stories

longer read features (up to 1,500 words)

If you’ve recently produced a report, done some research, written a book, given a talk, or penned a blog that deserves a bigger audience then we’d love to hear about it.

Unfortunately, the Society doesn’t have a budget to offer any payment for the articles, but we could give you free tickets to some of our popular events instead. And of course we will plug websites or publications at the end of the piece.

If you have something you would like to write about, or have something you think we should cover, email the editor, Jessica Cargill Thompson, at jessicact@btinternet.com

And you don’t have to be a member of the London Society to write for the Journal, so do feel free to pass this on to friends or colleagues who you think might be interested.

The new London Society Book Group will be holding its first meeting on 9 May in the evening (venue tbc, but central London).

The book being discussed is the Booker Prize-winning ‘Offshore‘ by Penelope Fitzgerald.

The discussion will be continued online , so even if you can’t make the meeting you can still contribute to the debate. (And you don’t have to be a London Society member to come to the meeting or take part in the online discussion.)

Set among the houseboat community of the Thames, ‘Offshore’ is a dry, genuinely funny novel, set among the houseboat community who rise and fall with the tide of the Thames on Battersea Reach. Living between land and water, they feel as if they belong to neither…

The new edition of Planning in London magazine is now available to read online (see below, or click here).

There are contributions from Paul Finch, Hank Dittmar, Julia Park and Tchail Chassay (among many others), features on Garden Cities, Old Oak Common and Planning for an Ageing Population, as well as reviews, letters, opinions and other features and regular articles.

“London is the great world city. We are very proud to live and work here and in two other Hanseatic cities Köln and Riga. As architects much of our work is here. We strive to contribute to the continued success and pleasures of the city. Fletcher Priest works at the urban, architectural and interior scales and explores our own research themes.”

Fletcher Priest is a cosmopolitan, award-winning practice with around 100 people working on significant urban design, architectural, interior, graphic design and research projects from offices in Cleveland Street, W1. Their work spans all scales for a wide range of clients in many sectors with their UK portfolio mainly concentrated in London and the South East, but with major projects in cities such as Manchester. Outside of the UK Fletcher Priest currently work in Germany, the Baltic and Brazil.

Corporate supporters do much to help the continued growth of the Society, providing vital funds to support events, membership recruitment and our publications.

Of course the two are inextricably linked. Crossrail 2 will create substantial pressures in boroughs like Kingston for development in the Green Belt; if we seek greater connections to the Rest of the South East (ROSE) then substantial lengths of track will pass through areas where no new development can take place extending commuting times.

The LSE published a report in 2016 which suggested that one of the most promising ways to achieve strategic development would be along a limited number of corridors. These would be made up of a chain of centres along public transport links. As well as additional housing, these corridors would provide commercial and industrial space that is increasingly being squeezed out of London itself. The corridors would be bounded by ‘green wedges’ with green spaces which would be improved environmentally, aesthetically and for recreational purposes. Last month The LSE published a more detailed proposal for a corridor along the London/Stansted/Cambridge route which suggests a more rationalise allocation of land than the ad hoc development which is taking place currently. In the absence of any political will to address issues around the development and the Green Belt his is the sort of debate that needs to be encouraged and in which the Society will continue to play its part.

Join the London Society

As a member of The London Society, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the forces that are shaping the future of London and discover a host of fascinating public programmes, tours, lectures and other convenings that celebrate this great city.